


Wine and Oysters

by Diminua



Series: Slices Through the Heart [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And ancient Rome, Lust, M/M, Oysters, but nothing actually happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:54:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: An angel tempts a demon to dinner.





	1. Chapter 1

Crowley decides, not for the first time, that he doesn’t like Rome much. Magnificent architecture but tedious hierarchy. Pointless rules about who can wear what.

The fact that the ‘colleague’ who’d given him his instructions had insisted on meeting at the amphitheatre in front of some mindlessly revolting spectacle had only made it worse. Crowley does try to seem enthusiastic about gratuitous slaughter– lest the idiots around him get suspicious – but today the best he could do was a kind of weary detachment.

It’s still clinging to him when he orders a jug of wine to take the taste of bloodlust out of his mouth, drown the sour thought of all those human people cheering on pointless death as if they weren’t all going to die soon enough anyway.

Crowley should probably be enthusiastic about that too. Instead he wants to scream at them. _Don’t pretend you don’t know this is evil. I gave you that knowledge. And this is what you choose_, _when I don’t even get a choice at all. _

So when Aziraphale says ‘Still a demon then?’ Crowley snaps back, although something inside him warms all the same at the implication there could be any other possibility, is amused at the sweet naivety of an angel who would think such a thing.

And as Aziraphale politely ignores his sulk to wish him health and clink their glasses together, indulgent and smiling and a hundred times happier than the last time they met, Crowley can barely manage to be bitter at all. The angel’s affection for the world and the ingenuity of people and the marvellous things they do with oysters has him just short of actually glowing. Crowley thinks he could happily curl up and bask in the radiance.

Instead he accepts an invitation to dinner and watches Aziraphale eat, all sleek satisfaction and small smiles, and ignores the fact that he’s not supposed to find pleasure in seeing someone else so happy.

Not meant to want to share – a drink, a joke, a platter of oysters. Listening to the angel describe the spices he tasted in Chirand, telling him about the silk map Crowley brought back from China.

‘You must show me one day.’ Aziraphale says (and Crowley does, within the century, and when Aziraphale gives him an escape map of the Italian coast on silk years later, at Christmas, Crowley will hang them one beneath the other at the foot of his bed, pulled taut in elegant ebony-wood frames).

In the meantime the alcohol has started a pleasant buzz in his head, softened the edges of the world and made it less.. annoying.

Aziraphale is saying charming things to the chef, receiving in return a flood of explanation about lemons and pepper and heat, and another platter of oysters, simmered in wine until it grows thick and slightly sweet-scented with lovage.

He leans forward across the counter to reach for them, meeting the server half way, the drape of his toga parting over his upper arm, drawing Crowley’s eye.

And Crowley is suddenly and acutely conscious of the loose, soft fall of cloth and the curve of milky flesh it now reveals.

Conscious too that he wants to run his tongue all the way along it, elbow to shoulder, bite down on the rich golden brooch which clasps Aziraphale’s clothes together and shake it free, take the angel’s hand at the wrist and suck the juice and salt from his fingers one-by-one, nip playfully at the plump softness at the base of his thumb, tilt his head back and press kisses beneath his jaw, down the vulnerable line of his throat, against his rose-petal-pink lips.

‘Crowley?’

‘Sssorry.’ The demon blinks, taking his wandering thoughts back in hand. Realises he’s leaning forward, eyes focussing on the angel’s mouth, and corrects that too.

‘I forget you’re a snake.’

‘Ssnake.’ Crowley does the hiss on purpose this time and is rewarded with what sounds remarkably like a giggle. He shakes his head, trying to smother thoughts of how sweet it sounds.

‘I’m not a snake, angel. I’m a demon.’ Demons do not think tender thoughts. Up until today Crowley had never thought once about kisses. Not even the brief closed-mouth greetings that friends around them often exchange. 

‘Well, I know that of course.’

‘It’s just.. you’re tempting a demon.’ For some reason this is suddenly hilarious. Temptari temptator.

‘Only to oysters.’

‘and wine.’

Aziraphale shakes his head, mock-serious. ‘No, no. you were already drinking the wine. I’m not taking responsibility for that.’

Ble.. curse him, rather. He doesn’t know the half.

‘Next time you should let me tempt you to something.’ Crowley says.

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ It occurs to Aziraphale, with one of the moments of clarity that sometimes hit him when he’s a little drunk, that there probably shouldn’t have been a ‘this time’, let alone a next.

And.. had he imagined something predatory in Crowley’s manner earlier? This is, after all, the serpent in the garden of Eden. Although Aziraphale has never seen them he has, presumably, worse weapons than a sharp tongue to bite with.

On the other hand the serpent is also Crowley, and Aziraphale likes Crowley. Always has. Can’t help it, really.

‘I think perhaps I should stop drinking.’ he admits. ‘It’s been a lovely evening though.’

‘It has.’ Crowley feels a sudden rush of.. something (oh Satan it’s _fondness_ isn’t it?) at realising it’s only now that the angel thinks to be careful. ‘It has been a very lovely evening.’ He slides off his stool.

‘Are you going?’ 

Contrary bloody angel. (Crowley still wants to kiss him. Hell only knows why. Where are these feelings coming from?)

‘Making an early start tomorrow.’ Is all he actually says. 

‘Yes of course. Well, until the next time then. Good luck with your.. temptation.’ Aziraphale screws up his face. ‘Oh dear. I shouldn’t have said that, should I? Anyway my dear, thank you for the company.’

‘It’s nothing angel. Take care, won’t you?’ and with that Crowley is gone.


	2. Cold Winds and Spiced Mead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a very long time – roughly 4.5 thousand years – Aziraphale has been convinced he is incapable of physical desire for another being.  
He's wrong about that.

For a very long time – roughly 4.5 thousand years – Aziraphale has been convinced he is incapable of physical desire for another being.

It is, he tells himself, completely understandable. He’s an angel, after all, and those are animal desires. Just because one is walking around in a human corporation does not make one subject to human imperatives, and when well-meaning monks and scribes describe fornicatio as a ‘deadly’ sin, a powerful lure to be guarded against, Aziraphale even allows himself to feel a little heavenly pity for the creatures, so prey to the drives of their own bodies, so constant in their struggle against it.

Nor is it that he hasn’t been exposed to physical beauty. Take the demon Crowley, for example, with his extraordinary eyes and long, tumbling curls (the sort that later generations will describe as pre-Raphaelite). Aziraphale has always enjoyed looking on him, and always finds his spirits rise on seeing him – although more for the pleasure of his company than his appearance, and certainly without feeling any physical response.

He likes the mind and the energy and the bones of Crowley, the sharp corners of him, lounging with lazy inelegant grace in front of the fire in a damp and draughty castle that almost makes Aziraphale nostalgic for his equally damp but rather less draughty tent.

It’s the first time Aziraphale has seen the demon look so miserable – not satirical or disillusioned but downright thoroughly physically miserable and chilled to the bone. So although it’s no secret that the angel likes his own comfort, this time he is mortifying his flesh by letting Crowley take the chair nearest the fireplace. And still Crowley is actually shivering, despite the thick wool blankets wrapped ridiculously around his legs and upper body, and the fact his feet are actually resting against the mantel to toast his toes.

‘If it was big enough I swear I’d climb right in.’ He says. ‘Aren’t these people meant to have tapestries? Curtains? Those shutters are doing exactly nothing at all.’

‘It is a bit bracing, I admit.’

‘Bracing? It’s almost as damp as hell.’

‘Really?’ Aziraphale is distracted. ‘I’ve always thought of hell as being warm.’

‘Bits of it are. The pit is. There are.. layers. Like a cake.’

‘Please don’t talk to me about cake.’ Aziraphale says unhappily. ‘I could just go for a nice slice of satura right now.’

‘Miracle one up.’

‘It doesn’t taste the same. And heaven doesn’t approve of gluttony. Pass the mead if there’s any left.’

There is, but the jug is getting light, so Crowley refills it with a thought before passing it back, smirking at the look the angel gives him.

‘What? _I’m_ allowed. _Hell_ approves of gluttony.’

They sit in silence for a few minutes, soaking up the warmth of the fire and the spiced alcohol.

‘I still don’t know why you wouldn’t agree to swap.’ Crowley says at last. ‘No point both of us being bored stupid in this castle for weeks.’

‘What exactly are you doing here again?’ The angel is tetchy, partly because of the cold and because dinner was an inadequate portion of something stringy, underfed and unidentifiable, boiled pale with watery veg, and partly because he wants to give in but thinks he shouldn’t. Or wants to give in but is certain it’s a trap, a temptation. Crowley is a demon, after all.

‘Quick seduction.’ Crowley tells him.

‘You said weeks.’

‘Well that is quick for a seduction. Humans aren’t as flighty as you’d think. Anyway I’m planning to fail. Don’t fancy it. Just putting the hours on the clock really.’[1]

‘Oh. Good.’ A beat of time. ‘Hang on, you were going to ask _me_ to do a seduction?’

‘Only a failed seduction.’

‘Yes well, I daresay even I could have managed that much.’

‘Although how anyone can seduce anyone in this place with all the layers you have to wear just to stop yourself from freezing I don’t know. It’ll be more like an excavation than a roll in the hay.’[2] He changes tack, as is his wont, halfway through the thought. ‘What makes you think you couldn’t do a seduction, angel?’

‘Well I don’t..’ Aziraphale considers. ‘I don’t have any experience for one thing. I don’t have those.. instincts.’

‘Really? That’s a shame.’ Crowley’s glance, as he takes the mead back for another swig, is speculative. Aziraphale notices, automatically, that he has taken his smoked glasses off since it’s just the two of them. The pageboy cut this century favours suits him too - much better than the overly tidy and disappointingly short style of the Roman Empire.

‘Why a shame?’

‘Nothing much.’ Crowley is, or acts, nonchalant. ‘Just a pity you’re missing out on one of life’s pleasures, that’s all. Look how much you enjoy food and wine and rich fabrics. So if you did have those instincts, I think you’d probably enjoy them.’

‘Have you..’ The angel pulls himself up short. ‘Actually no, don’t tell me. Absolutely none of my business. Shouldn’t have asked in the first place.’

He stops babbling, has no idea why he’s so flustered. He might not be prurient but neither is he a prude. The topic is, in fact, something which he has made a point of knowing about for his job. It certainly doesn’t embarrass him in itself.

Yet talking about it with Crowley, thinking about Crowley perhaps being the subject of it, a victim to it (well maybe not a victim. Demons happen to other people, not vice versa) has already made Aziraphale uncomfortable. A fluttering under his breastbone, a tightness in his throat. He takes another draught of the mead to ease and disguise it. Smiles meaninglessly and nervously as he hands the jug back, noticing that Crowley’s fingers are as slender as the rest of him. As eloquent. As strong.

He notices too that the demon doesn’t drink at once, stares into the fire as if lost in thought, seeing something that isn’t there. It makes it safe for Aziraphale to study him further, to admire the delicate line of his brow and nose, neither quite straight, the flame-bright of his hair, lit from the blaze behind, catching properly now. The slim column of his neck rising out of the absurd nest of blankets Aziraphale built in that chair, encouraged Crowley to burrow into, wanting to warm him but knowing he mustn’t touch, lest they both burn.

The word subconscious will not be coined for another fourteen hundred years, but when it does Aziraphale will immediately recognise the theory. Something long held in the back of the mind coming abruptly into focus. A sudden awareness but without sudden surprise. 

Because Crowley is very lovely, and nothing could be less strange than Aziraphale’s desire for him. The angel has no strategies, no specific form of coupling or embrace in mind, cannot in fact imagine anything more daring or less chaste than a kiss to the back of that neck, pushing away the fall of Crowley’s hair to reach bare skin.

But the desire is there, a soft ache of wanting what is forbidden, untethered to anything more. 

No-one must ever know.

[1]Clocks have of course not yet been invented. Clocking-in clocks even less so. This is a very rough translation of a common but not easily interpreted phrase in the local Cornish dialect.

[2] Also a rough translation. Although hay has at least been invented at this point.

**Author's Note:**

> These were meant to be one-shots. Best laid plans...


End file.
